December, 1984
"My momma is sick," Erik announces in a puff of white, frosty air. It's getting dark out, and the outdoor lamps are few and far between where they live.
Magda stills beside him. She knows sick. Her brother Erich got sick once, and even she had been sick on occasion, but what Erik means is sick. She pushes out her lower lip in a sympathetic pout, and gently pats the top of his hand.
"I'm sorry, Erik," she murmurs. She doesn't quite know what to do with her hands after that, so she reaches up and fiddles with her Hanukkah gift from Erik: a carefully handcrafted necklace made of nuts and bolts strung on twine. Her father had refused to let her wear it until it had thoroughly been sanitized, and she had yet to take it off since.
"She couldn't help make latkes," Erik adds, and his young voice is gruff with the injustice of it all. He tugs off a woolen glove, and clumsily rubs at his eye with the back of his frozen wrist. He recalls how his mother barely had the energy to lift her bony hand to point at a mixer. How frail and listless she looked when he had set it aside and instead grabbed a brush to tame her thinning hair. He recalls how tender her skin was to the touch, and how she hissed in pain when he carefully tried to place her hair underneath her favorite handkerchief.
"Ruth doesn't get it," he says with a shake of his head. He's just shy of being two years older than her, and yet he feels like the age difference is massive when it comes to how they're coping to the inevitable loss of their mother. He curses in Hebrew, something he had once heard his father mutter to one of the various doctors that shuffled into their home.
"I need to go," Magda says apologetically. "It's the last night. You understand."
Erik does. He needs to get home too.
They both stand, and share a quick hug. "Shalom," they whisper into the shell of each others frost-nipped ears before they part on their respective ways home.
Erik isn't scolded for arriving after dark. Instead he is greeted with a tired smile, and outstretched arms. He settles himself in between them, ignoring the brittle bones that wrap around his frame. He reluctantly pulls away and aides his mother towards the dining room table. The room is dark, getting darker by the minute, but when the first of the eight candles are lit, it brightens the room with a soft and warm hue. He catches sight of Ruth fast asleep on the couch, and he hasn't the heart to wake her. Edie follows his stare, and smiles wanly. She reaches out, hands thin and shaky, and lovingly touches the silver pendant before she caresses Erik cheek.
"I love you," she whispers in Hebrew rather than German.
The next morning, the room cast in shades of blue and gray, is cool and quiet. It's broken by intermittent whispers, and heavy footfalls. Erik rouses from sleep, casting a weary eye to where his sister was curled on her side of the bed, before he slowly shirked the sheets from around his legs and slipped from the bed. His father is home, early if the lack of bird calls are anything to judge by, and there is someone else there too. A man, possibly two.
Erik dropped to the floor, hissing as the cold wood flooring kissed his knees, and crawled towards the bedroom door. He risked a peek underneath, unable to catch anything but a trouser-clad pair of legs. There's crying, low and broken by sniffles, but it's unmistakable. A bed creaks as a heavy weight sits on the edge of it, and an unfamiliar man's voice apologizing in blunt German. Another asks if more time is needed, and Erik can't stand to hear any more.
He pushes himself into a seated position, back pressed against the door, and lean legs pulled to his chest. He wraps his arms around himself, shaking in the cold of the room, and he can't quite stifle the sob that escapes his lips.
Ruth wakes, asks what is happening. Erik shushes her and tells her to go back to sleep.
She does, and he cries and cries until he too passes out.
TBC...
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